| Article ID: | iaor20013365 |
| Country: | United Kingdom |
| Volume: | 28 |
| Issue: | 4 |
| Start Page Number: | 289 |
| End Page Number: | 315 |
| Publication Date: | Apr 2001 |
| Journal: | Computers and Operations Research |
| Authors: | Breedam Alex Van |
| Keywords: | heuristics |
Three improvement heuristics for the vehicle routing problem are considered: a descent heuristic and two metaheuristics Simulated Annealing and Tabu Search. In order to make an in-depth comparison of the performance of these improvement heuristics, their behavior is analyzed on a heuristic, time-sensitive level as well as on a parametric level. The design and the results of the experiments are outlined. The external validity of the conclusions is discussed.